A FOXHUNTING club run by some of Scotland’s top toffs have been exposed for paying a huntsman “slave wages” and forcing him to slop out.

Mark Vincent, who worked for the elite Eglinton Hunt in Ayrshire for five years, was paid just £1.50 an hour and expected to work up to 80 hours a week.

And while the club’s landed gentry lived in the lap of luxury in their castles and mansions, Mark claims he had to sleep in a derelict caravan without plumbing.

The 45-year-old was awarded £40,000 earlier this year after reporting the hunt to HMRC for paying him less than the minimum wage.

But yesterday Mark broke his silence, demanding to know why there had been no criminal prosecution over the way he was treated.

He said: “The hounds were treated better than me.”

Among the members of the foxhunting club were wealthy businessman Neville Washington OBE, former Tory councillor Rose-Ann Cuninghame and John Briggs, who owns Kilhenzie Castle, near Maybole, Ayrshire.

Mark said: “The membership of the Eglinton Hunt read like Burke’s Peerage. Yet these toffs were happy to pay me about £1.50 an hour and keep me living in shocking conditions in a caravan on castle grounds.

“These people should be ashamed of themselves for the way I have been treated.”

Mark revealed how he worked 10-hour days setting up hunts, looking after the club’s 58 hounds and rebuilding the kennels for a miserly £100 a week.

He said he was promised a cottage, holidays and a pension – but none of this materialised.

Mark added: “I stuck it out because I loved the job and thought things would improve. But they never did. They just got worse.

“They think they are above the law because they’ve got money but I decided to take them on over the way I was treated.

“At one point, I was working 80-hour weeks for £100 a week when they told me to go down to Dumfriesshire and set up hunts down there too. It was nothing short of slave labour.”

Mark’s dilapidated caravan was in the grounds of Caprington Castle, near Kilmarnock, which is owned by Cuninghame.

He said: “There were 58 hounds and they needed someone to look after them 24/7, so they put me in a caravan next to the castle.

“It was uninhabitable. There was no plumbing, so I had to slop out.

“There was water running down the inside of the walls and the floors were rotten.”

Mark, originally from Yorkshire, said he was headhunted by the Eglinton Hunt in 2003 after the new foxhunting laws were brought in.

He said: “They knew I had loads of experience and they wanted someone who knew what they were doing, so they offered me the job, which was supposed to come with a decent wage, a cottage, a pension and holidays.

“Instead, I was treated like dirt by the landed gentry. I was their skivvy. They had me running about like a madman doing everything, yet paying me wages which didn’t come anywhere near the minimum wage.”

Mark insisted he complained about his treatment and lodged grievances about his wages over the years.

Eventually, his pay rose to £182 a week in 2007 – but that was still well below the minimum wage for a 70 to 80-hour week.

Mark on horseback in the middle, at Eglington Estate

After seeking advice from the Scottish Association of Country Sports, he made a complaint to HMRC, who enforce the national minimum wage and have the power to order organisations to pay workers any arrears they uncover in investigations.

A lengthy probe revealed that Mark had been underpaid for five years and Eglinton Hunt were told to pay up nearly £50,000.

The amount was reduced to £40,000 after they contested it and he got his cheque in March.

Mark, who was sacked just months after reporting the club to the taxman, is now taking the club to an employment tribunal.

The tribunal had been held up because they were awaiting the outcome of the taxman’s investigation.

Mark said his decision to take action has ruined his career.

He explained: “I haven’t worked in foxhunting since I was sacked in November 2008.

“The toffs stick together and I’m just bad news to them because I stood up for myself.”

Mark added: “I won my case with the taxman against them but I want to know why no one has been prosecuted over this. It seems to be one rule for the rich and one for the poor.

“In the whole time I was employed, I never received a payslip. They said they were paying my pension contributions but that was all lies.”

No one from the Eglinton Hunt, who disbanded in 2008, wished to comment.

Washington, the former master and chairman of the club, said: “The matters that relate to Mr Vincent’s employment are the subject of an employment tribunal which has yet to take place.

“Until the issues have been tested, we are not at liberty to make comment.”

Cuninghame said: “I thank you for your enquiry but I’m not in a position to comment.”

Washington, who is listed as one of the respondents along with Cuninghame in the tribunal case, has offered Mark £10,000 to drop the case in a letter sent last month.

He wrote: “The purpose of this letter is… to say that we are prepared to make an open offer to Mr Vincent of £10,000 in full and final settlement of all outstanding claims that you may have against the respondents in both cases and subject to the parties completing a compromise agreement.”

Mark turned down the offer. He said: “I will continue my fight to clear my name.

“I’m not interested in the money. I want justice.

“These toffs cannot be allowed to get away with treating people like that.